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Africa During the Scramble: The Worst Mistake in Human History

The British in their wars against the Xhosa had always been notably and shockingly brutal, shooting anything that moved, taking no prisoners, destroying food supplies to starve out the enemy and handing out women and children to their colonial troops as labour. For the Xhosa, this brutality was new and terrifying, it was a shattering experience for a people who had largely won their wars against the Dutch and Khoisan and weren't used to losing, yet alone this mercilessness destruction.
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(Shouldn't that be "merciless"?)

No wonder H.G. Wells figured that for the British to put themselves in the shoes of all the peoples they had brutally conquered, it took the framing device of a literal alien invasion.

In the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf says that the prudent thing would be hole up in their strongholds and extend the war as long as they can but the right thing to do is to gamble everything on victory.
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Paradoxically, the South African-born Tolkien would probably have heard about what happened to the Xhosa. He might also have usefully reflected on the fact that from the perspective of the native South Africans, it's the British who were the Orcs.

What the Xhosa learned from the Cattle Killing was that even if you think you don't have anything to lose, you still often do.
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A lesson learned again the hard way by many an electorate.
 
napoleon IV said:
What did Nongqawuse think after all this happened? I know she lived the rest of her life in obscurity on a farm, but did she ever make any comments regretting doing this or did she maintain that she was right until the end?
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Disappointingly, none of the books I've read has ever addressed her post famine take, which presumably means she made no public comments on it as the 'why the fuck did this happen' question is so fiercely debated that if she had, I would have encountered it.
 
The Article goes to great lengths to try and rationalize and humanize the decision that really does seem completely insane as a desperation measure and I feel like I now understand why it happened whilst still finding the fact it happened an absolutely astounding statement of how capable of deluding ourselves into impossible acts of stupidity human beings can be.
 
Death's Companion said:
The Article goes to great lengths to try and rationalize and humanize the decision that really does seem completely insane as a desperation measure and I feel like I now understand why it happened whilst still finding the fact it happened an absolutely astounding statement of how capable of deluding ourselves into impossible acts of stupidity human beings can be.
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The article quite rightly compares this to other similarly desperate religious uprisings among native peoples facing colonial encroachment, and one could make the point that the Boxers were yet another instance of such a phenomenon.
 
Death's Companion said:
The Article goes to great lengths to try and rationalize and humanize the decision that really does seem completely insane as a desperation measure and I feel like I now understand why it happened whilst still finding the fact it happened an absolutely astounding statement of how capable of deluding ourselves into impossible acts of stupidity human beings can be.
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I really appreciate this comment death, walking that tightrope of trying to explain why it happened without pretending it wasn't insanely self defeating is exactly what I was trying to do and I'm delighted it had that effect on you.
 
Similar with the Boxers is that Rural China even today apparently has a pretty strong spiritualist/superstitious movement. I don't know remotely enough about it to talk about it without coming across as either an idiot or a racist but whilst the apocalypse probably pushed people to take drastic measures they'd probably be far more hesitant to embark on if they perceived they had anything to lose one thing that a modern Western audience probably won't be able to grasp is that plenty of them genuinely thought the spells would work.

Western Europe was hardly immune to a fascination and genuine belief with the supernatural and it even influenced world politics (a certain infamous Canadian statesman springs to mind) but well things were never bad enough for this to amount to more than trivia rather than catclysm in modern times. Even today there is a gigantic industry around parting people from their money or health or both based on good vibes and of course various active religions.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this exactly beyond I guess people are always going to think there is more than meets the eye to the world and if the mundane and physical is not offering the right answers some portion of the population will turn to alternatives and some circumstances and societies let that escalate to astounding levels.
 
Death's Companion said:
Similar with the Boxers is that Rural China even today apparently has a pretty strong spiritualist/superstitious movement. I don't know remotely enough about it to talk about it without coming across as either an idiot or a racist but whilst the apocalypse probably pushed people to take drastic measures they'd probably be far more hesitant to embark on if they perceived they had anything to lose one thing that a modern Western audience probably won't be able to grasp is that plenty of them genuinely thought the spells would work.

Western Europe was hardly immune to a fascination and genuine belief with the supernatural and it even influenced world politics (a certain infamous Canadian statesman springs to mind) but well things were never bad enough for this to amount to more than trivia rather than catclysm in modern times. Even today there is a gigantic industry around parting people from their money or health or both based on good vibes and of course various active religions.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this exactly beyond I guess people are always going to think there is more than meets the eye to the world and if the mundane and physical is not offering the right answers some portion of the population will turn to alternatives and some circumstances and societies let that escalate to astounding levels.
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Reagan's horoscopes? Not sure how much truth there was to that rumour though.
 
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